Month: August 2021

The Weekend… Finally

It is Friday. I have logged out of work for the day. It’s finally the weekend. You’d think that would be good. It’s not. The stress is still through the roof. I have to come back here tomorrow evening. I don’t want to, but I have to.

My mother hung out in the living room with my father and the healthcare worker. No animosity like there was this morning. She was fine. Actually, she slept in the recliner quite a bit. My father slept in the hospital bed. Sometimes that leads to a difficult night, but not always. In fact, I think more often than not it’s not a big deal.

I really need all of this to be over. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but is it close or is it far away? It’s so hard to tell when you’re buried in the pitch dark.

A Literal Note to Self

We have had a home health professional in the house for three days now. When we first talked about bringing in help we discussed it with my parents. They were both on board. Given my mother’s memory issues, someone came up with the idea of having her write a letter to herself detailing how she felt about the situation at that time.

I had to use it today.

A literal note to herself.

It was rough. We were in one room and she was telling me how she wanted the woman out of the house and she didn’t like her and she liked the woman who was here yesterday and she wanted to know who allowed this to happen and can I call them and tell them not to come back. All through this, the woman who is helping us today, dare I say heroically helping us today, was in the next room hearing every word.

I had forgotten about the note to self but when I let my siblings know what was happening they reminded me. Mom wasn’t happy when she read it, but said she remembered writing the letter and she’s been okay ever since.

I made sure to tell the woman that she shouldn’t take anything my mother said personally, and that it was likely by the end of her shift my mother would be her best friend. That’s kinda how it goes. She was nothing but understanding and professional and I am so thankful for her attitude, not to mention her help.

Now though, my group at work is short handed this afternoon and I just had a task mailed to me. I’ll get on it.

Here’s hoping it will be a quiet afternoon in the house and at work. I need me some weekend.

10 Years Ago Today

You know how Facebook does that memories thing where it shows you things you posted on this day in history?

10 years ago today we were at the San Diego Zoo. That is both a wonderful thing and a moderately depressing thing because Covid.

Let’s focus on the wonderful part, shall we?

2011-08-06 - San Diego Zoo 260
2011-08-06 - San Diego Zoo 249
2011-08-06 - San Diego Zoo 248
2011-08-06 - San Diego Zoo 387

Friday Morning

It’s Friday morning, everyone! You’ve almost made it to the weekend. Hang in there, it’s almost over.

Ready for your morning update to the saga of my personal pain?

Last night was okay. I don’t control the TV remote anymore so I stuck my AirPods Max with their transparency mode onto my noodle and surfed the web. I decided to watch The Orville. We had started it once before but only got a few episodes in. I’m going to give it another go. I also did some music and bitched about local news. Mom’s pain level was manageable. Dad was fine.

This morning though.

I woke up about 5:30. Dad was asleep but mom was up. She was in a lot of pain and she was very confused. She told me she was lost. She said she was in the new school and didn’t know her way around. She was opening doors and peering inside trying to figure out what was up. She asked me what each room was. She asked me if we were on the second floor. I kept telling her she was home and safe but it wasn’t getting through. Eventually she found her bedroom. She called it “a” bedroom, not “her” bedroom though. She sat on the bed for a little while and seemed to slowly come back to herself.

So that was fun, right?

Dad is still asleep, but mom is having breakfast. The complaining about pain and the feeling lost both seem to be gone. I’m pretty thankful for that.

I need to get my workspace ready for the work day, check on the doors, and try to sneak in the new episode of The Bad Batch. The home health folks aren’t coming until 9:00 so I had a little extra time to get ready. I had gotten into the habit of keeping all of my stuff on dad’s hospital bed in the living room but I can’t do that anymore. I think my CPAP machine and my laundry and stuff will go out to the car this morning so they won’t be in anyone’s way.

I have a really bad feeling about today. I shouldn’t but I do. I also had to switch some days around this month. My brother and sister and I all have stuff we need to do in our own lives outside of our parents’ lives so the calendar was monkeyed with. It works to my benefit later in the month, but in the immediate future I have some tough times. I will go home tonight around dinner time, but instead of having a day off before I come back, I come back tomorrow night at dinner. That’s still better than the 48 hour shift I have next week. That’s going to be a shit burger.

Okay. Let’s get this Friday rolling, shall we? Happy thoughts, everyone. Happy thoughts.

Song Number 16

Here’s another new song. This one is better than most if not all of the others. At least I think so right now. I’ll likely change my mind later.

Both of my parents are asleep. They both fell asleep with a TV on. Dad is in the living room. I need to sleep in the living room. I can’t find the remote. I think he might be laying on it. I can’t sleep with headphones on. Insert the sigh of frustration here. At least he got up and walked around on his own, including a trip to the bathroom. No assistance from me was needed at all. That is huge. Super huge. What a relief.

Granted, he fell asleep with the news on, and this network ran the same 30 minute news program at 9:00, 9:30, and 10:00. I think I am going to hear the same things maybe five times before the talk shows come on. Gross.

I’m Here

I’m here at my parents house again. Mom is here. Dad is here. I am here. Everything has been okay since dad came home on Tuesday, but I’m sitting here patiently waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, I’m waiting for the hammer to fall. However you want to put it.

HBO Max has released The Suicide Squad today. Tonight, actually. I think they brought it live at 7:00pm. The reviews are good. The first movie was… eh. Nothing special. This one was made by the same guy who made Guardians of the Galaxy so maybe some of the magic will rub off?

18 minutes until meds distribution.

Jen and Harry are out college supply shopping. Jen is worried about Covid. We’re all worried about Covid, but she and Harry are both vaccinated. Frankly, all the non-vaccinated people can suck it. Take the friggin’ vaccine, you selfish pricks.

What was I talking about?

Oh well, I think I’ll go make sure all of the door alarms are set and get them their pills. Dad needs a snack with his.

Right then, I’ll talk to you later. There might be a new song to share. We’ll see where the night leads us.

I miss Jen and Harry and Bellana and Patches and I want to go home.

Lunch Break

I’m on my lunch break. What’s going on?

Podcasts… What’s the deal?

MacOS used to have its podcast functionality baked into iTunes. At some point recently (was it the current MacOS or the last one? I can’t remember) they spun it off into its own application. It sucked. Like… bad. It sucked bad. The interface is terrible and nearly impossible to use. Discovering new podcasts… can you even do that? I don’t know. It just sucked.

iOS and iPadOS had their own standalone podcast apps. The two are virtually identical. There’s a screen thing here and there that is a little different, but the two of them are basically the same. That app (I am going to refer to the two as if they are just one app on different platforms. Hey, it’s my post I can do whatever I want. FREEDOM!) was never good. In fact, it was always pretty crappy. It was, however, a work of absolute genius when compared to the MacOS app.

Something happened recently. I don’t know what. I heard the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast talking about it a few months (I think) ago, but I am still not sure what happened. Whatever it was, it took the two mobile platform podcast apps, stabbed them in the heart multiple times, cut their heads off, and flushed all the bits down the toilet. It is absolute garbage now. Nothing viewable has changed. The interface is exactly the same. It’s just the performance that has more or less overnight become unusable. The Apple mobile podcast applications are now as useless as useless can be. Crap-tastic. Crash-tastic. Terrible. Garbage.

They are so bad that I am currently listening to podcasts while I work via the MacOS podcast player. I have my MacBook Pro streaming through the HomePods in my bedroom. I’m using the awful Mac version… that’s how bad the mobile versions are.

There are new versions of all three OS’s on the way. I am hopeful, though not optimistic, that improvements are coming.

Come on, Apple. Let’s fix this. You are making my work day more annoying than it needs to be.

The Never Ending Flood Story

There was a little bit of water on the cellar floor when I went to bed last night. We were in the midst of our first four consecutive rain-free days since April and it seemed like things might be on the mend down stairs.

Then it poured over night last night. Again. There was more water in the cellar this morning, though still not the worst it’s been. Clean up complete. Wet vac and dehumidifier emptied yet again, though unlike the last few times it is currently raining in Methuen, Massachusetts, though it’s just a drizzle.

Just add it to the growing list of things that are pissing me off these days.

I feel like a fucking yo-yo. I was optimistic three days ago, absolutely crushed two days ago, a little sort of bordering on optimistic yesterday, and just miserable again today.

Who would have imagined that I would look back over the recent past and see something other than 2020 as the low point of human existence. I am actually feeling a little nostalgic for the high point of the global pandemic that locked down the civilized world and killed millions of humans. Not really, but in a self centered way? Yeah, a little.

Fuck.